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[Feature Request] [WordCraft] Paragraph dialog parity for Traditional Chinese (zh-TW) documents #5367
Description
Summary
We're evaluating WordCraft 0.15.0 (Windows x64 MSI) for Traditional Chinese (zh-TW) business documents built from Word templates, such as reports and letters. Several things already work well for us, including Taiwan-standard hanzi in the zh-Hant interface (#3380) and East Asian / Latin font fields that behave as in Word.
The Paragraph dialog is now our main blocker: zh-TW templates depend on several paragraph settings it can't show or edit. Some already have open PRs; the rest have none that we could find.
A. Covered by open PRs — please consider prioritising review and merge
| Need | Why it matters for zh-TW documents | PR |
|---|---|---|
Line spacing: At least / Exactly (w:lineRule) in the dialog |
The zh-TW templates we work with use a fixed line height (固定行高), e.g. Exactly 20 pt. The engine's para.lineSpacing already accepts atLeast / exactly, but neither the Paragraph dialog nor the ribbon's Line Spacing menu offers them; both take multiples only. |
#3777 |
| Special: First line / Hanging, with By | First-line indent (首行縮排) and hanging indent (凸排) are everyday settings. In the dialog, a hanging indent currently means typing a negative First line value, which isn't discoverable. | #4922 |
| Outline level and Collapsed by default in the dialog | Lets headings in custom styles appear in the Navigation pane and TOC. | #2260 |
Spacing before/after in lines (w:beforeLines, w:afterLines): read, lay out, keep on save |
zh-TW Word commonly expresses paragraph spacing in lines (e.g. 0.5 行). In 0.15.0 these attributes are ignored on open and not written on save, so spacing can differ from Word's and the setting is lost on round trip. | #4089 |
Allow hanging punctuation (w:overflowPunct) and Compress punctuation at the start of a line (w:topLinePunct) in layout |
Both checkboxes are on the Asian Typography tab and are saved to the file, but layout doesn't act on them in 0.15.0. | #3462 |
Text alignment (w:textAlignment) in layout |
Not read from DOCX in 0.15.0; a prerequisite for the dialog control in B.3. | #4864 |
B. Not covered by any PR we could find
-
Character and line units in the Paragraph dialog. zh-TW Word commonly shows indents in characters (字元) and spacing in lines (行), e.g. First line: 2 字元, Before: 0.5 行. Please:
- show and accept character units for Left, Right, First line and Hanging, stored as
w:leftChars,w:rightChars,w:firstLineChars,w:hangingChars(the DOCX reader and writer already handle these); - show and accept line units for Before and After, stored as
w:beforeLines,w:afterLines(building on Paragraph spacing in lines: read w:beforeLines / w:afterLines and lay them out like Word #4089); - keep a value in the unit it was set in. Today, editing an indent in the dialog converts it to points and sets the
*Charsvalue to 0 (cancel_char_indents).
Related, but broader: [Feature Request] [WordCraft] Add specific indention system for Thai and Chinese #3191.
- show and accept character units for Left, Right, First line and Hanging, stored as
-
Snap to grid when document grid is defined checkbox on Indents and Spacing (
w:snapToGridon the paragraph; the reader already parses it). zh-TW templates often define a document grid, and this decides whether a paragraph follows it. -
Asian Typography › Text alignment dropdown: Auto, Top, Centered, Baseline, Bottom (
w:textAlignment). -
Asian Typography › Options…: custom first and last characters for line breaking (
w:noLineBreaksBefore,w:noLineBreaksAfterin settings.xml) and the Standard / Strict level (w:strictFirstAndLastChars). -
Set As Default button, applying the dialog's settings to the Normal style for this document or for new documents.
-
Preview pane, as in Word.
-
Minor: Textbox options › Tight wrap on Line and Page Breaks (
w:textboxTightWrap). DOCX: preserve paragraph text box tight wrap mode #5015 (open) would preserve it on save, but there's no control.
Environment
- WordCraft 0.15.0, Windows x64 (MSI), zh-Hant interface
- Reference: Microsoft Word for Windows, zh-TW
Related issues and PRs
- Line spacing: [Bug Report] [WordCraft] Line spacing issues #1913 and Modify Style can't set a style's line spacing, character spacing or indents #3776 (both addressed by Modify Style: line, paragraph and character spacing for styles; spacing and style fixes #3777)
- Outline level / Collapsed by default: [Feature Request]: Collapsible headings (fold / unfold sections by heading level) #1745 (addressed by Collapsible headings: fold arrow, Collapsed by default, w15:collapsed (#1745) #2260)
- Chinese documents opening with shifted indents and layout: Font, typesetting, and paragraph issues #534; character-unit indents on open landed in Chinese documents: character-unit indents, .doc indents and line spacing, floating tables, blank pages (#534) #550; related layout and preservation work in layout: character-grid cells for large text, *Chars indents in grid cells #5003 and DOCX: preserve Japanese character units, fitted text and grid metrics #5084
- Default formatting / Normal template, which a Paragraph-dialog Set As Default would build on: Persistent default formatting for new documents (Normal template), and RTF losing the default font and size #1264, #4237: Set As Default saves a Normal template (Normal.dotx) that new documents start from #4621
- East Asian punctuation compression (
w:characterSpacingControl), relevant to B.4: doc, docx, layout: East Asian punctuation compression (w:characterSpacingControl) #5006
Activity
ticket-craft commentedon Nov 3, 2026
Thanks! This ticket describes several separate problems:
It helps a lot if each one has its own ticket, so they can be tracked and fixed separately.
Possibly related: #3191, #534 and #3776.